Unplug the Time Bomb

by Anjali Gupta

Recently, I met several folks who quit pursuing their dream because a time bomb exploded in their minds. The time bomb had started ticking the very moment they announced, “In six months, if I haven’t reached some visible and socially acceptable milestone, I will quit my dream”. My personal experiences as well as those of my immediate circle show that such time bombs almost always explode. After reflecting on why they explode, I realized that they were setup to explode from the word go. They are plugged into a goal or a metric that was unrealistic and sometimes just incorrect for the chosen dream. So the clock always wins before you make it.

Far too many times I have measured progress on a scale that was bound to give a zero reading in the short-term. For example, if you are on a path of innovation, for creating an idea or a business mode that does not exist – how can you measure yourself by metrics used by a traditional business? You need to start with a well-proven business model to match business metrics. When you’re in a Laboratory mode you’re not a business in those early years; you’re simply validating if a business is possible when the product succeeds. Therefore it makes sense to measure your progress by the metrics used in a Lab. For example, how many experiments did you run, what did you learn from the ones that failed, how can you simplify the problem, etc. You need to talk to people who fund experiments and believe in iterative product evolution. If you choose the wrong scale, you chase the wrong milestones, and invariably set a time-bomb that’s bound to explode before you’re ready. You never gave yourself a fair chance.

If you want to be a successful writer, you cannot worry about publishing your first book the day you start writing. You will need to throw away many stories until you find the one that sticks. As Malcomn Gladwell’s book Outliers emphasizes that people need to put in 10,000 hours to become good at anything. Who is going to pay for those 10,000 hours of unstructured work? One cannot escape investing time. Unfortunately most of us find interesting stuff to do only later in life. The only problem with a late start is that it creates a pressure to apply past-income metrics i.e. the infamous opportunity cost to any time we spend on it, even before we have acquired the necessary learning to succeed.

In college, when the family was paying for learning, when a college was churning out a report card every six months for others to see, and when a degree was being promised four years later, we did not apply the time bomb principle. We let it take four years as there was no perception of opportunity cost. We allowed the luxury of four years of learning time to a degree that simply brings us at par with millions of others; and now we’re unable to give the same luxury to a goal that has the potential to make us stand out in that crowd!

Eyes cannot see progress, they only see results. So what do you show them when you have no visible results? Go get someone who can see the invisible, who can see the small progress you’ve made and can nudge you forward – a mentor, a patron, a companion, or a real angel. That person will take you through that period of invisible progress.

Our society creates a pattern of setting time bombs to everything we do – buying a house, a new car, or even irreversible events like getting married and having children are all attached to a fixed time-line. We should all learn to reserve time bombs for things that are less important, like doing laundry before the weekend is over or learning to play a song before the year is over. When it comes to stuff that matters to feeling alive; stuff you never want to see explode, like your childhood dream, or a compelling vision, or a meaningful relationship. Let it have all the time it needs. Just find a way to keep it ticking. Even if it’s behind time, it’s alive!

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17 Comments to “Unplug the Time Bomb”

Its about Means and Ends as well. People prioritize the ‘End’ over the ‘Means’.

You need to enjoy the scenery on the road while reaching your destination. The hurry to get to the destination takes the sweetness out of it. If you have a passion for something, you will enjoy ‘Doing’ it as much as ‘Getting it Done’. Thats what is missing from all this.

Insightful article. I’d like to add that often it takes experience to realize this. That life doesn’t run per your schedule.

I think we set time bombs because most of us aren’t comfortable with uncertainty. Setting such (unreasonable) targets adds some level of certainty (though it may only be an iota) to an already uncertain path and outcome. But it certainly is a way to set yourself up for failure!

Time and having a couple of failed experiences teaches you otherwise =)

A couple of comments. I have been providing goal setting/strategic planning for private industry and individuals for over 10 years (inlcluding 3 years in India/Bangladesh), and three of the biggest reasons people/organizations fail are:

a) Not having SMART (speficic, measurable, attainable, realstic, and timely) goals. Many people will just write down the first couple of things that comes into their head; (new car, new house, new job, etc), without even developing a goal action plan on how they are going to achieve their goals. Why are these their goals? How will they measure their progress? How will they hold themselves accountable in reaching their goals?

b) Goals and dreams should be broken down into short and long term goals for obvious reasons. When goals are broken down into smaller blocks of time, which are short and long term-it makes it much easier for the person to reach his/her goal objectives because they are more managable.

c) Not having the faith or beleif in themsleves or in God to actaully complete in reaching/achieving their goals. Irrespective of one’s personal faith and/or religious views, everyone around the world believes in something or someone. “If you can believe it you can achieve it”, conversely, if you don’t believe you will, more than likely you won’t. Think about it…

Anjali, a very real and inspiring post! Yes, having the right mentor / companion at the right time would be the most natural and powerful way to avoid the time bomb explosions, but I think it is also the hardest part. For example, the professional mentoring services or career forums can’t exactly fulfill this role. The friends who could have done it, probably don’t even get a chance to play this role, given how the interactions get intermittent and how the communication channels get limited as everybody gets busy with their lives. So I wonder if one is perhaps better off realizing that you have to rely on yourself primarily, and that even though you may not have an actual mentor, there are tiny angels hidden everywhere — like in a remark from a friend that touches your heart, in a book you read recently, in a speech you listened to, or in great posts such as these. 🙂